No Change There Then: Perceptions of vocational education in a coalition era

This paper explores the findings of a qualitative study carried out in summer 2010 on behalf of City and Guilds Centre for Skills Development (CSD), which explored young people’s perceptions of vocational education. The participants, drawn from schools and colleges across England, were pursuing a broad range of vocational programmes. Data were gathered using a series of focus groups and individual interviews and analysed using a thematic approach within a Bourdieusian theoretical framework drawing on notions of structure and agency, field and habitus as well as on the extensive body of literature exploring vocational education and school to work transitions for young people. The field work for the study was conducted at the time of the General Election and this analysis also contextualises the findings in terms of the Coalition response to the Wolf Review of Vocational Education (2011).